As It Is On Telly (4 page)

She’d never heard of a rich man called Jason who wasn’t a film star. And she couldn’t even think, when it came to it, of too many of them, apart from the monster that leapt out of the lake in the
Friday
the
13th
movies … Bunty shook her head. Too many movies. Too much TV. Too much goddamn imagination. It had always been a problem.

*

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Bunty,

Just to confirm the rendezvous with Jason, member 242, at The Pig and Cauli, tomorrow at 7.30 p.m.

As our consultant, Gemma, will have informed you, as responsible dating management practitioners, we would always advise that you tell someone where you are meeting and check with them afterwards that you are home safe and sound. Meet in an open, well-lit environment and do not invite your prospect to your home until you have had time to ascertain his character. Our vetting procedures, while very thorough, can only go so far.

Have a lovely time!

Priscilla.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

His surname isn’t Dahmer, is it? Or Bundy?

Bunty

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Hello Bunty

I’m afraid that according to our membership privacy protocols, I am not at liberty to divulge Jason’s surname. If he wishes to tell you himself tomorrow, that is our member’s prerogative.

Best wishes

Priscilla

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Sorry, Priscilla, that was another joke. B.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Bunty

Your safety is never a joke to us.

Yours

Priscilla

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Hi P, no, I see that, of course, sorry. Sorry. B.

CHAPTER FOUR

Getting ready for a very furtive date was distinctly nerve-racking. Bunty was quite amazed that Graham actually had the stomach for it, but there he was, lumbering around in the corner of the bedroom, throwing white shorts and a rather armpitty polo shirt into a sports bag in readiness for his ‘squash’ game. Bunty wondered what, or who, he would be squashing, as she turned her nose away from the smell. He had this subterfuge down to a fine art, even packing shirts that had been pre-sweated in his attempts to con her.

‘Right, that’s me,’ he said, zipping up the bag with a flourish. ‘I think you could cancel Kristiana, you know. Charlotte can look after herself for an hour and a half until I’m home.’

Bunty covered her smile by swiftly applying some M•A•C Soft and Slow to her full lower lip. That made sense. If Kristiana were here with Charlotte, she couldn’t be
there
with Graham. Or even here with Graham, with Charlotte apt at any moment to burst into the room demanding more food, more money, or more electricity for one of her vast array of technological devices.

‘It’s illegal,’ she said eventually, as Graham stood with his hand on his hip – his more streamlined hip – waiting for an answer. ‘She has to be fourteen before we can leave her on her own. And quite frankly she needs watching, unless …’ She eyeballed Graham in the mirror. ‘How do you spell vagina?’

There was a long pause. ‘What?’

‘Vagina.’ Bunty said it in as slurred a fashion as she could manage without sounding like she’d been hitting the gin. Didn’t want to give it away. ‘How do you spell it?’

‘More like:
Why
would I spell it?’

Bunty sighed. ‘Just humour me, Graham.’

‘All right,’ he said with a slightly lascivious grin, looking up into the mirror like a kid at a spelling bee. ‘Vagina: V … A … G …’

‘Okay, it’s not you.’

‘It’s not me?’

‘No. Thank God.’

Big wiggling bums might still be Graham, but she was pretty sure he would know exactly how to spell that so the test was pointless. Shoving her eyeliner back in her makeup bag, she shooed him out of the room, ignoring his bewildered expression.

Downstairs, the pneumatic Kristiana had already commandeered the remote control and was fighting with Charlotte over whether to watch
The
Simpsons
or
Project
Runway
. Charlotte clearly favoured the latter. ‘That gay guy totally loses it tonight,’ she whined. ‘I’ve been waiting all week to see it.’

‘You are too young for gay guys and plunging necklaces,’ purred Kristiana in her peculiarly American-tinged English.

‘Necklaces? I’m too young for necklaces?’

‘I think Kristiana meant necklines, Charlotte,’ said Bunty from the doorway. ‘And I agree. You are too young for gay guys and plunging necklines. And for looking up rude words on the computer.’

The brilliant flush that swept across Charlotte’s pimples was all the evidence she needed, but Bunty was temporarily distracted by the appearance of Graham beside her. Would he give himself away?

‘Don’t worry, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘Your mum’s losing it. She’s just been asking me to spell rude words too.’

Kristiana raised a beautifully arched, golden eyebrow. The two together could have been used as an advert for Macdonalds. ‘Mrs McKenna, I have a very good dictionary if you need to borrow it.’

‘Thank you, but I know how to spell all the rude words I need to, thank you.’ This wasn’t going quite as planned. Instead of chastising her daughter and making sure the childminder wasn’t bonking her husband, she was coming across as some kind of perverted schoolteacher. ‘Look, never mind, just make sure Charlotte goes to bed before ten, doesn’t go on the computer unsupervised, and doesn’t watch anything she shouldn’t, including Project Runway.’

‘Aw, Mu-um …’

‘I’ll be back before ten anyway,’ interjected Graham.

Bet you will, thought Bunty darkly. Quick grope in the downstairs cloakroom as he got Kristiana’s coat for her – she could see it already. She just hoped Jason was going to be up to the challenge.

‘What time are you back, darling?’ said Graham solicitously.

‘When I feel like it,’ replied Bunty.

A slight frown passed across Graham’s face, but once again Bunty ignored it as she blew a kiss towards Charlotte, who rolled her eyes, and headed out of the door. She clambered into her Mini Cooper, then paused. Here was an ideal opportunity to see what Graham was actually getting up to when he purported to play squash. Checking her watch, she found she had a full thirty minutes before her meeting with her mysterious millionaire, so she pulled down a side road and waited for Graham to ease by in the company Mondeo.

As soon as he’d gone by, Bunty pulled out again, sliding down in her seat, almost wishing for a headscarf and dark glasses. She rang Kat. ‘Guess where I am?’

‘At the pub? You’ve seen him already and can’t decide whether he’s the pig or the cauli.’

‘No, I’m following Graham!’

‘You don’t have to whisper, Bunty, unless you’re following him in the back seat of the Mondeo.’

They veered left towards the sports hall. ‘Sorry. Oh, he’s pulling in.’

‘Where?’ squeaked Kat.

‘At the sports hall.’

Long pause. ‘The sports hall where the squash courts are?’

Bunty peered around her bleakly. It was, in fact, the very same sports hall with squash facilities that Kat had just mentioned. Graham actually was playing squash. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said, watching Graham gather his battered squash bag from the boot. ‘He can’t be just playing squash.’

‘Why not?’ said Kat, not unreasonably.

‘He just can’t … Oh! Wait. He’s not going in. He’s waiting in the doorway. He’s meeting someone. Kat! It’s a woman! A bloody blonde woman and he’s getting in her car. Shit!’

‘Take a photooooo,’ screeched Kat.

But Bunty was in too much shock to remember that she had a camera on her phone, let alone how to use it. He actually
was
having an affair. Her wild imaginings were right on the button. The tart even looked like Bunty had imagined, although the bottom was more firm and twangy than big and wiggling.

‘Bunty?’

‘Bastard!’ Bunty threw the car into gear.

Kat’s voice sounded extremely hopeful. ‘Are you going to follow them?’

‘No bloody way. He thinks I’m just going to take it while he pokes some blonde bint, does he?’

‘So what are you doing?’

Bunty grinned viciously. ‘Operation Shug D. I’m going to meet this Jason. And he won’t know what’s hit him.’

Kat giggled. ‘Call me after. Or during if he’s really creepy and you need an escape call.’

‘Over and out,’ snapped Bunty.

She fumed all the way to the Pig and Cauli, for the first time feeling hurt and trying to tot up all the times Graham had said recently that he was off to play squash. He’d even started going on Sunday mornings. That should have told her! Sunday mornings were sacrosanct to Graham – lying in bed too late, optimistically nudging Bunty’s thigh with his half-erect penis, giving up and eating too much bacon on buttered toast. Such had been their routine for years, ever since Charlotte had turned into the hormonally driven wreck that she now was and needed to sleep till midday.

‘Squash. Ha!’ muttered Bunty, walloping the car over one of the tree-filled concrete diamonds in the car park and berthing it diagonally in a disabled space. It was the only remaining parking spot under a light – that’s what she’d say if anyone complained. Get Priscilla onto them maybe.

As she got out, she checked the other cars in the vicinity, hoping for at least a Silver Ghost, but finding only the usual selection of sales rep cars and more ladylike, hot hatches, including a rather flash-looking Golf in electric blue with a personalised number plate: JAMMY 23. She entered the pub, nerves masked by the outrage still pulsing through her courtesy of Graham’s blatant betrayal.

There was no sign of Jason, just the usual collection of besuited twenty-somethings, notching up enormous tabs on their expense accounts. Bunty looked around. To her surprise, one of the twenty-somethings, stationed on his own in the corner of the pub, raised a hand.

‘Hi. Bunty. You look just like your photo,’ said the boy, wiping champagne out of the bum-fluff on his chin.

‘You don’t … are you Jason?’ Now that she looked again, there was a resemblance to the photo she had seen on the Croesus Club email, except that this version was only half the age of the person she’d imagined she’d be meeting.

‘Yeah!’ He laughed delightedly. ‘Photo was of me dad. Thought it might go down better, you know.’

Bunty sat down with a bump. ‘So you’re not a city trader, dynamic, earning lots, looking for … well, me?’

Jason shrugged lightly, the thin wool of his suit creasing over his shoulders like vulture’s wings. ‘Oh yeah. I am. I’m all of those things. Super rich and all that. Jammy bastard, the other traders call me.’

He poured Bunty a glass of champagne – Moet, she noticed, doubtless the very best the Pig and Cauli had to offer – while the details sank in. ‘Jammy. That’s your Golf outside?’

‘Jammy 23. My name, my age.’

‘Oh, Jesus.’ Bunty upended the glass, trying hard not to burp as the bubbles rushed down her gullet. ‘You’re twenty-three? That’s …’ That’s what, she thought. Not much older than my daughter? Younger than my babysitter? Downright ridiculous?

‘But … but you saw how old I am and everything,’ she stammered at length.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Jason, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back in his seat. He looked like he was appraising a racehorse.

‘So … why?’

Jason laughed, flashing an impressive set of expensive veneers. They were the most attractive thing about him. ‘It’s your age. Well, and you look good too. I like women your age. You’re the capital of China, incha?’

Bunty shook her head. ‘I’m … Beijing?’

At this, Jason tutted. ‘Well, they would go and change it, wouldn’t they? No, you’re the old name for the capital of China.’

‘Peking?’

Bunty was totally lost, but even more so when Jason leered distinctly at her crotch. ‘That’s right. Thirty-five. Peking, mate.’

Peking. She was Peking. Peeking? Or … ‘Ohhhhh,’ she said after a short period of tugging at her skirt to deflect Jason’s lecherous glance. ‘Peaking. I’m thirty-five, so I’m peaking.’

‘Sexually,’ said Jason with a nod and the faintest hint of a dribble.

She’d heard the myth, of course. Women reached their sexual peak at thirty-five, men at …. nineteen, was it? It didn’t seem likely, somehow, bearing in mind the slightly spongy nature of her breasts and stomach. Her sexual prime had to have been before her boobs turned from Pippin’s apples to small bananas. Surely someone younger, Kristiana for instance, was ‘peaking’. Bunty was over the summit and down the other side. In fact she was fairly sure she’d read somewhere that Watchit and Perv, or whoever had done the survey in the fifties, had come to this conclusion because the only women they could get to talk about sex, even admit to knowing anything about it, where in their mid thirties. Now people struck up casual conversations about it on the bus, opened up their blogs for all to see, even broadcast documentary accounts of their lurid and tasteless foragings on
YouTube
. Netnurse. Must get Netnurse, she reminded herself. Even that sounded vaguely tainted.

‘I lied,’ she said eventually. ‘About my age. I’m thirty-eight. Peaked. Completely peaked. Over the bloody hill and in a pit at the bottom.’

Jason didn’t look perturbed. Nor did he look like someone who could get a shag by normal means. ‘You still look pretty lusty to me.’

Bunty covered her mouth in an attempt not to giggle. Bloody Priscilla was going to die. ‘But Jason, or can I call you Jammy? Jammy, you must have known from my profile that I’m actually looking for a husband, not just a … a fling.’

To her great consternation, Jason leaned over the table and squeezed her fingers. ‘Well, I was thinking we might do ourselves a little deal. I’m a trader, see. I know my markets.’

‘Your markets?’ Bunty slid her hand out from under the boy’s sweaty fingers, hoping desperately that nobody she knew ever came into the Pig and Cauli. She fumbled furtively for the speed dial on her mobile. Come on, Kat.

‘It’s just like a business deal, isn’t it?’ Jason winked. ‘I got the money, you got the looks and the … peaking, sexual, grrrrrr stuff. Thing is, I’m always going to have the money, and you’re not always going to have the looks, so it’s not much of a deal for me if I end up being your husband, is it? So I thought we might treat it like a sort of … leasehold venture.’

Bunty spluttered champagne right down her front. ‘You want to … to rent me? There’s a name for that, you know?’

‘No, not like that.’ Jason held up a hand. ‘You’re making it sound, you know, cheap. What I’m proposing is an old-fashioned, mutually beneficial business deal.’

Kat, call me back, call me back, thought Bunty desperately. So this was what she had to look forward to – youths barely out of puberty expecting ping-pong tricks from a desperate older woman. It might work for men, copulating with women half their age who still had firm high breasts, manuals on giving blow-jobs and vaginas like a length of hose pipe, but the prospect of clambering into bed with someone who still had regular wet dreams was too depressing by half. So depressing, in fact, that she wasn’t going to stand for another second of it.